Two Budget-minded Spots Good For Ethnic Variety

February 3, 1989|By Robert Tolf, Staff Writer

For the past many months, every time I whiz past a restaurant called the Fantastic, I`ve wanted to stop and spend at least a few minutes to find out just how fantastic it really is. I had no intention of pulling a full-scale review, and am not doing that now, but I did want to add it to my inventory of simple little budget-stretching spots to talk about at some future date.

The Fantastic is anything but that in its appearance. It`s a free-standing miniblockhouse with a nothing kind of parking space out front and some windows that look out at traffic. Inside is strictly spartan, with the customers providing most of the decor.

In other words, Fantastic is like any number of Cuban places in Dade County -- and a few in Broward -- where the food and the friendly attitudes are the main attractions. As are the prices.

The children`s menu is the first place on the extensive menu to prove the point. A hamburger with french fries is $3.50; a minute steak or grilled chicken, both with fries, are a dollar more.

Specialty of the house is a sirloin steak at $7.25, which is the same price as the breaded steak Milanese. $7.25 also buys the breaded shrimp, No. 30 on the bilingual menu.

The shrimp are not the top of the tarriffs, however. Tops are Nos. 28 and 29, shrimp creole and shrimp in garlic sauce which are pegged at $8.95 and $9.95.

Working down the other end of the scale, one can eat a quarter of a fried or roasted chicken for only $4.25, a ham steak with pineapple for $5.50, ground beef for $4.75 and pot roast for $6.95. All those costs come on the complete dinner side of Cuban life, meaning they are accompanied by liberal portions of white rice and black beans and sweet fried plantains or french fries.

If you want to finish with flan instead of a bread pudding flourish, as we did, the custard will set you back $1.75, and a cup of the excellent Cuban coffee 60 cents.

-- The same time I took the trouble to learn what Fantastic meant, I made another discovery on the boulevard. I found a restaurant named not only Cantina but Trattoria as well, which seemed to be an effort to combine the best of two possible worlds -- perhaps.

With a bar and counter on one side of the storefront, and a simple, furnished dining room on the other, it is almost as simply outfitted as Fantastic. And it has a serving staff that proved to be as friendly.

La Cantina is another place to put in the inventory of budget-stretchers. The most expensive items on the menu are the $12.95 veal chop and the steak pizzaiola. A trio of shrimp dishes -- stuffed with crab meat, mingled with vegetables or with spinach Florentine style -- are pegged at $10.95.

At the lower end of the tariffs are the 13 pasta preparations, starting at $4.95 for spaghetti Bolognese or with meatballs, and topping off at $6.95 for penne with prosciutto and onions, linguine carbonara or a special tortelline.

For our first meals we started with an order of $2.50 roasted sweet peppers, the $3.75 fried calamari and the $3.75 clams oreganato. We then zoomed into that veal chop and an order of stuffed shrimp. The shrimp were fine, but there was precious little crab meat or flavor in the filling. But the side dish of linguine was better than average.

And alongside were endless baskets of garlic rolls, large ones, of the variety that oozes oil and garlic so that after each and every bite, it`s necessary to use the napkins.

I suppose the garlic rolls at La Cantina, the white rice and black beans at Fantastic say it all. Here are two solid, unpretentious expressions of ethnic variety on the neighborhood level.